Extinction

'What’s wrong with human extinction?' by Elizabeth Finneron-Burns in (2017) 47(2-3) Canadian Journal of Philosophy 327-343 comments 

This paper explores what could be wrong with the fact of human extinction. I first present four reasons why we might consider human extinction to be wrong: (1) it would prevent millions of people from being born; (2) it would mean the loss of rational life and civilization; (3) it would cause existing people to suffer pain or death; (4) it would involve various psychological traumas. I argue that looking at the question from a contractualist perspective, only reasons (3) and (4) are admissible. I then consider what implications this limitation on reasons has for the wrongfulness of various forms of human extinction. ... 

There is any number of potential future population sizes, one of which is zero. That is, we could decide not to create any more humans at all. There seems to be a fairly widespread thought that it would undesirable for humans to become extinct as evidenced by the amount of research undertaken that wor- ries about such an outcome. The Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford, for example, states one of its aims to be research into interventions that would reduce the risk of outcomes that ‘would end Earth-originating intelligent life’ (Institute 2016). Similarly, the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge describes its goal as to ‘steer a small fraction of Cambridge’s great intellectual resources, and of the reputation built on its past and present scientific pre-eminence, to the task of ensuring that our own species has a long-term future’ (Risk 2016). Clearly, a significant quantity of financial and intellectual resources is being invested in the prevention or prolonging of human extinction. Presumably, this is because people see something wrong with the idea that we might cause or allow the human species to become extinct. 

However, there is little work being done to explain what would be wrong with causing or allowing humans to go extinct. Human extinction could come about in anthropogenic (e.g. climate change or a decision not to procreate) and/or non-anthropogenic (e.g. an asteroid hits the Earth) ways. We can also either directly cause extinction or passively allow it to occur, either intentionally or unintentionally. We could, for example, decide that we no longer want to procreate — perhaps we buy into David Benatar’s view that because all lives contain at least a degree of harm, we ought not to procreate at all (Benatar 2006). Eventually, humans would go extinct because we chose to follow a course of action that we knew would and intended to cause extinction. We might also directly contribute to extinction by failing to mitigate climate change even if extinction was not the intended consequence of our actions. Even facing the risk of a completely non-anthropogenic cause of extinction, there may be things that humans can do to prevent it occurring and if we do not, we could be said to have allowed extinction to occur. 

Since human extinction could, in many cases, be brought about by human activities or at least passively be allowed to progress, it therefore makes most sense to ask about its potential moral wrongness. This paper seeks to answer the question of whether or not it is morally permissible to cause or allow human extinction to occur. Put another way, under what (if any) conditions would peo- ple causing or allowing the extinction of the human race be wrong? 

I will consider the wrongness of human extinction from the perspective of T.M. Scanlon’s contractualism (Scanlon 1998). This is for two reasons. The first is that I believe his theory is a convincing account of moral wrongness. Second, the application of contractualism to the area of future generations remains largely unexplored so approaching the question from this angle will also help us learn more about contractualism in an intergenerational context. 

The essence of Scanlon’s contractualism is contained in his well-known statement:‘an act is wrong if its performance under the circumstances would be dis-allowed by any set of principles for the general regulation of behaviour that no one could reasonably reject as a basis for informed, unforced general agreement’ (Scanlon 1998, 153). We wrong others when we fail to consider their interests in our moral deliberations and do not give them the respect they deserve by virtue of being rational people. This happens when we cannot justify our actions to them using acceptable reasons or when we act according to a principle that they could reject for similarly acceptable reasons. 

Scanlon’s formulation is a type of person-affecting theory. By person-affect- ing, I mean that what is important is the effect of principles/actions on persons, rather than the world writ large.  Therefore, acceptable reasons must be, according to Scanlon, personal. Personal reasons ‘have to do with the claims and status of individuals in certain positions’ (Scanlon 1998, 219). In other words, they are grounds ‘that a person may find objectionable because of their bearing upon her being able to live a rationally self-governed, meaningful life’ (Kumar 2003, 9, fn. 6). Personal reasons include, inter alia, considerations of well-being, rights or fair treatment. In order to be a reason either to justify a principle or to reject one, the reason must be personal — it must have an impact on a person or persons. 

There are, of course, other reasons people might have for wanting to act in certain ways that do not bear on an impact on persons. Impersonal reasons are one such type. Scanlon understands impersonal reasons to ‘flow from the value of objects themselves, not (at least in the first instance) from anything having to do with my relation to other people’ (Scanlon 1998, 221) and ‘are not tied to the well-being, claims, or status of individuals’ (Scanlon 1998, 219). They may include considerations such as an appeal to the aggregate value of an outcome (e.g. total utility) and the intrinsic value of equality (to name just two examples). In the contractualist formula, since impersonal reasons by definition do not stem from impact on persons, this means that they cannot on their own provide reasons to reject a principle. Whilst Scanlon is not denying that impersonal considerations may be important to people, in order to be relevant to the rejectability of a principle, they must give rise to personal reasons. For example, assuming that non-human animals are not persons, their pain and suffering is not a personal reason to reject a principle permitting it. However, a person could have a personal reason to reject a principle permitting the pain and suffering of animals if it prevented her from living a life consistent with the impersonal values (the well-being of animals) that she finds to be important in her life. So impersonal values cannot on their own provide reasons to reject principles, but they can lead to personal reasons if a principle forbids that person from living a life consistent with those values (Scanlon 1998, 218–223).

 

Cato

From 'Goodbye to Law Reviews' by Fred Rodell in (1936) 43 Virginia Law Review 38–45 

There are two things wrong with almost all legal writing. One is its style. The other is its content. That, I think, about covers the ground. And though it is in the law reviews that the most highly regarded legal literature—and I by no means except those fancy rationalizations of legal action called judicial opinions—is regularly embalmed, it is in the law reviews that a pennyworth of content is most frequently concealed beneath a pound of so- called style. The average law review writer is peculiarly able to say nothing with an air of great importance. When I used to read law reviews, I used constantly to be reminded of an elephant trying to swat a fly. ... 

Then there is the business of footnotes, the flaunted Phi Beta Kappa keys of legal writing, and the pet peeve of everyone who has ever read a law review piece for any other reason than that he was too lazy to look up his own cases. So far as I can make out, there are two distinct types of footnote. There is the explanatory or if-you-didn’t-understand-what-I-said-in-the-text-this- may-help-you-type. And there is the probative or if-you’re-from-Missouri- just-take-a-look-at-all-this type. 

The explanatory footnote is an excuse to let the law review writer be obscure and befuddled in the body of his article and then say the same thing at the bottom of the page the way he should have said it in the first place. But talking around the bush is not an easy habit to get rid of and so occasionally a reader has to use reverse English and hop back to the text to try to find out what the footnote means. It is true, however, that a wee bit more of informality is permitted in small type. Thus “It is suggested” in the body of an article might carry an explanatory footnote to the effect that “This is the author’s own suggestion.” 

It is the probative footnote that is so often made up of nothing but a long list of names of cases that the writer has had some stooge look up and throw together for him. These huge chunks of small type, so welcome to the student who turns the page and finds only two or three lines of text above them, are what make a legal article very, very learned. They also show the suspicious twist of the legal mind. The idea seems to be that a man can not be trusted to make a straight statement unless he takes his readers by the paw and leads them to chapter and verse. Every legal writer is presumed to be a liar until he proves himself otherwise with a flock of footnotes. 

In any case, the footnote foible breeds nothing but sloppy thinking, clumsy writing, and bad eyes. Any article that has to be explained or proved by being cluttered up with little numbers until it looks like the Acrosses and Downs of a cross-word puzzle has no business being written.

Corporations

In Australian Securities and Investments Commission v GetSwift Limited (Penalty Hearing) [2023] FCA 100 Lee J comments 

 To adapt the famous remark of Ted Heath, GetSwift Limited (in liq) (GetSwift), and those primarily responsible for its wrongful conduct, could be described as representing the unacceptable face of start-up capitalism. 

GetSwift was a public “early stage technology company” that generated operating losses in every year of its existence. Notwithstanding this, from an issue price of 20 cents in December 2016, within a year, its share price had risen to well over $4, prior to a trading halt announcement. It raised a total of $104,000,000 from investors in two placements. It became a market darling because it adopted an unlawful public‑relations‑driven approach to corporate disclosure instigated and driven by those wielding power within the company. 

This eventually became apparent. Three days after the publication of an article in January 2018 in the Australian Financial Review entitled “ GetSwift : Too Fast For its Own Good” (cogently explaining that GetSwift had failed to update the market about losing materially significant contracts), Get Swift Logistics Pty Ltd (Get Swift Logistics) (a wholly owned subsidiary) transferred $72,000,000 to a bank account held by GetSwift , Inc (another wholly owned subsidiary incorporated in the United States). On 22 August 2018, following the commencement of an investigation by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) in February 2018, Get Swift Logistics transferred an additional $8,500,000 to an offshore bank account held by GetSwift, Inc., bringing the total funds transferred to $80,500,000. These transactions were unexplained by any evidence before me. 

More remarkably, well after the balloon had gone up, the share price had plummeted, a class action had been started, and at around the same time the evidence concluded in the liability phase of the ASIC regulatory case before me, GetSwift sought to re-domicile to Canada. GetSwift convinced another judge of this Court to allow it to do so, partly on the basis of an undertaking that GetSwift Technologies Limited (GetSwift Technologies) would not take any steps to wind up GetSwift and would indemnify GetSwift in relation to penalties imposed in this case or in relation to an adverse judgment in the class action. ASIC did not pre-emptively make an application to me to restrain the removal of GetSwift from Australia when the highly unusual course was proposed during the pendency of the regulatory proceeding (although it is fair to record it did oppose the scheme approval in the separate proceeding). 

The undertaking was not worth the paper it was written on. GetSwift Technologies (as GetSwift ’s only member) resolved in July 2022 to place GetSwift into voluntary liquidation. The absence of any likely return means the class action brought by shareholders (Webb v GetSwift Limited & Anor, NSD 580 of 2018) has now settled with no recovery by those who suffered loss by reason of GetSwift ’s breaches. In approving settlement of the class action on 2 February 2023, Murphy J observed that GetSwift’s “own misconduct has now brought it to its knees” and that its actions represented a “scandalous episode of corporate misconduct”. One can only agree with his Honour’s observations. 

What is the response of the people responsible for this dreadful state of affairs? 

Mr Bane Hunter, the former executive chairman and chief executive officer, and principal instigator of the wrongdoing of GetSwift , has not returned to Australia to defend his position and did not appear at the penalty hearing. His lieutenant, Mr Joel Macdonald, after initially appearing at a case management hearing, has also not turned up to defend himself. He also signed the resolution winding up GetSwift . 

After putting ASIC to proof in every aspect of its intricate case and requiring expenditure of vast public resources, neither Mr Hunter nor Mr Macdonald have shown the slightest degree of remorse or contrition, nor have they made any acknowledgment they behaved improperly. Additionally, ASIC has been unable to explore where all the money raised from investors went. 

It is against this singular background that I am required to consider the civil penalty to be paid by the liquidated malefactor, Messrs Hunter and Macdonald and by Mr Brett Eagle (a solicitor who remains in Australia and who has, by contrast, engaged with the penalty case). I am also required to consider whether each of the individuals should be disqualified from managing corporations in the future and, if so, for how long. I have already said enough to make it obvious that this is an unusual civil penalty case, which has no ready analogue. 

My mercifully unreported liability judgment in this matter (Australian Securities and Investments Commission v GetSwift Limited (Liability Hearing) [2021] FCA 1384 (Liability Judgment)) was 2,618 paragraphs long. As I then explained, its size was the result of the case advanced by the ASIC being vast in scope, involving the need to wade doggedly through a prodigious documentary case and make innumerable findings. These reasons assume familiarity with the findings relevant to each the contraveners, and adopt the definition of terms in the Liability Judgment.

Lee further comments 

... I observed (at [13]) that Mr Hunter displayed a management style that owed little to the influence of the late Dale Carnegie. I further noted that he was demanding, forceful and regularly brusque to the point of rudeness. Upon re-reading the evidence and reflecting on my findings, including after listening to the evidence of Mr Eagle, and in the absence of any explanation by Mr Hunter, I would go further: Mr Hunter was not only a bully, but also someone who had a laser-like focus on making money for himself and Mr Macdonald. If that involved breaking the law regulating financial markets, or exposing GetSwift to third party liability, that was of little concern to him. ...

Identity Crime

The Manchester crown court has convicted Zholia Alemi for fraud, after she practised as psychiatrist in the UK for 20 years without necessary qualifications and after forging medical degree certificate.Alemi received income and benefits of over £1m across her career,

Manley J referred to a “deliberate and wicked deception”, noting that Alemi worked in hospitals across England, Wales and Scotland. Alemi was found guilty of 13 counts of fraud, three counts of obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception, two counts of forgery and two counts of using a false instrument. 

Manley J commented that the deception Alemi to work with “potentially very vulnerable people over a long period of time”, questioning how Alemi had been able to practise for so long and in so many positions. The Prosecution described Alemi as “a most accomplished forger and fraudster” who had “no qualification that would allow her to be called, or in any way to be properly regarded as, a doctor.”

Reports indicate that in providing a forged certificate to the General Medical Council in 1995, Alemi claimed to have qualified at the University of Auckland, with a forged letter of verification referring to “six years medical trainee with satisfactory grade”. A vetting failure did not pick up that Alemi's  records showed that she completed only the first stage of the degree and had been excluded from re-enrolment after multiple failures. 

An investigative journalist claims

 The records showed she had the requisite medical degree, a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (referred to as MBChB), awarded in 1992 by the University of Auckland. It took only three of four phone calls to confirm that Alemi’s medical degree was a fiction.

Alemi was at times was employed by the NHS, worked at health bodies and trusts, and secured positions through recruitment agencies. 

t Alemi had been convicted of three fraud offences at Carlisle crown court in 2018 after forging an 84-year-old woman’s will to make herself the beneficiary and forging powers of attorney. She was sentenced to five years in prison in that case. 

 The UK General Medical Council (which had dealt with nine complaints, "all were investigated fully") states 

We are confident that the robust checks we use today would identify anyone attempting to join the register dishonestly. A doctor applying for registration today in the same scenario would be required to:

• have their primary qualification verified with the relevant university by the *ECFMG – the body that verifies the credentials of healthcare professionals worldwide 

• sit and pass both parts of Professional and Linguistic Assessments Board (PLAB) test or provide equivalent evidence of their medical knowledge and skills 

• provide comprehensive employment history and references for the most recent five years 

• provide a certificate of good standing from the regulator in each country they had practised in over those five years

• attend the GMC offices in person to undergo an ID check bringing all original documentation with them. These documents are then examined in detail. This includes physical and light machine examination – each document is examined for signs of amendment, tampering or falsification.. We also use a Keesing document checker – Keesing Technologies is a specialist provider of digital anti-counterfeiting and authentication solutions. In addition, we have access to a system called PRADO – a multi-lingual site for disseminating information on security features of authentic identity and travel documents

Alemi was investigated by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service in 2012 after failing to disclose a conviction for careless driving. At that time the Tribunal looked into a complaint that she had wrongly sectioned a patient, issuing a warning. The GMC is unable to bring disciplinary charges against Alemi because she is not a real doctor and so cannot be struck off the medical register.

The British Medical Journal notes that in 2017 Conrad de Souza was convicted for false representations about his qualifications, employment history and previous convictions. He had been jailed in 2011 for 27 months after posing as a GP and working for nine years in NHS roles in south London. De Souza did not complete medical school, had invented his date of birth and falsely claimed to have studied at Dulwich College. Inadequate checking meant he was able to work in clinical strategy roles for the former Lewisham Primary Care Trust for nine years. The 2011 conviction appears to have been triggered by forgery regarding his manipulation of a paternity test in order to evade child support obligations.

The 2017 conviction followed him admitting six charges of fraud at Croydon Crown Court in 2016 after falsifying his employment and qualifications in an attempt to secure senior health roles in the NHS between 2013 and 2014, presumably after early release from prison.